RE: https://mstdn.social/@gparenti/117485606324428106

Share this widely please.

My 89 yo mom drove herself to the county seat to cast her ballot today. She told me that she was voting for some she wouldn't ordinarily vote for (Southern white lady translation: she's voting for the black lady for governor) but she felt she had no choice but to vote a straight D ticket to send a message. Mama has seen the light! Can I get an Amen?

@aesthr If I may add to the "AI is not conscious" statement (because this one annoys me so much).

LLMs are incapable of independent thought. They just spit out plausible responses regurgitated from trillions of pieces of data, scraped from the internet. It's no more sentient than thinking a calculator is intelligent for spitting out "10" when you punch in "5+5" and then hitting the "=" button.

It's hard to put into words how powerfully Jimi Hendrix's music came across to us young people in the late 1960s. But I watched a video of his performance at Woodstock and he played a more or less impromptu jam, as he told the crowd the band would be doing, that was just genius. I don't know of any other word that could do his playing justice. I've never heard anyone play like that.

Walled gardens all the way down: The push to separate us from sources of information
https://www.halifaxexaminer.ca/morning-file/walled-gardens-all-the-way-down-the-push-to-separate-us-from-sources-of-information/

Morning File by @philmoscovitch

Remind us again how to de-google

Grapes On The Vine

Living within a stones throw from California's famous Napa valley certainly has it's advantages.
I do prefer the late summer and fall for shooting any images at the wineries as the grape vines are full of foliage and bursting with fruit. Right around harvest time the vines start changing color as most broad leaf trees do at this time of year.

https://pixels.com/featured/grapes-on-the-vine-bill-gallagher.html

#GrapesOnTheVine #BillGallagherPhotography #NapaValley #Grapes #FallHarvest #BuyIntoArt #AYearForArt

GoDaddy is revoking 404,000 certificates

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2083191

Prints for sale!

- Fujicolor Crystal Archive Professional Lustre Paper (210gsm)
- Vibrant, fine-grain pebble texture
- Archival: 100+ years on display, 200+ years in storage
- Silver halide, RA-4 wet printing process
- Sizing: White borders don't change size of the print

https://gyrusinczky.darkroom.com/products/1867185

Photo projects: https://shootlike.boo/#photoprojects

#fediArt #mastoArt #buyIntoArt #artPrints #artForSale #giveArt #giftIdea #fediGiftShop #creativeToots #smallBusiness #supportSmallBusiness #photography #nikon

Exxon want to be sure we blame the right people #YellowDotStudios #GodzillaElNino #NoNewOilandGas
https://youtu.be/yJyQXGynwsg

#midterms #ohio #elections #voting

@aesthr One thing though - as I understand it, the Character .ai bankruptcy isn't a "real" bankruptcy caused by a lack of customers/investors, but rather a strategic move to transfer much of the company's IP and staff to Disney while leaving the lawsuits and liability with the empty husk of the original company.
https://www.wired.com/story/disney-asked-characterai-to-go-bankrupt-for-a-get-out-of-lawsuits-card/

@randahl

Accuracy. Dont just say American.

Republican politicians, far right subversive billionaire funded world coup far right politicians, like billionaire funded far right coup politicians in Europe, and Latin America, and Russia.

#billionsirism #billionaires #nihillionaires #nihillionairism

Email your Members of Congress and urge them to investigate Meta's pattern of political suppression and hold tech giants accountable for any attempts to interfere in our elections: https://act.indivisible.org/sign/tell-your-members-congress-reject-tech-billionaire-influence-on-elections?source=mastodon

This is how ugly American politics has become.

In Ohio, Dr. Amy Acton (D) and Vivek Ramaswamy (R) are running for governor.

It is publicly known that Dr. Acton survived sexual abuse as a child, and that she was removed from her mother’s custody at age 12.

On Tuesday, Ramaswamy’s campaign launched an attack ad featuring Acton’s estranged mother, who calls her daughter a liar about her childhood and insinuates that she is mentally ill.

1/2

Elon Musk has poured $366 million into the US midterms so far.
I suppose that is a low price for avoiding congressional investigations into everything he has done since Trump took office.

#uspol #midterms

On Saturday, we made history with our country’s largest-ever early vote activation.

Now it’s time to get into election protection formation: https://www.mobilize.us/nokings/event/1041684/?utm_source=indivisible&SQF_MEDIUM=mastodon

TEXAS: Early voting has begun! Voting early is the best way to make sure your ballot is safe from suppression efforts and election sabotage.

Not in Texas? Help drive historic early vote turnout by sharing this post. Visit 866ourvote.org for more info.

Election Day is just two weeks away — and we’ve got lots of ways you can make a difference in the midterms!

Help us contact voters in the states and districts that will decide this election: https://www.mobilize.us/indivisible/event/1024066/?utm_source=mastodon